24-year-old faces life in prison for drive-by shootings in Oak Cliff

Here’s a way to ruin your life quickly.

Rafael Rubi’s petty grievances inspired him to commit four drive-by shootings in Oak Cliff last year. Rubi, 24, pleaded guilty in federal court to possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon, possession of a firearm to further drug trafficking, and possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance.

Federal agents linked a semiautomatic pistol that was found in Rubi’s car during a traffic stop to shell casings left in one of the shootings.

That led them to execute a search warrant at his home, which turned up the other charges and a second gun, found inside a toilet tank, which was also connected to the shootings.

The Dallas Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives used NIBN, a ballistics evidence database, to catch Rubi, the Dallas Morning News reports.

Rubi left more than 100 bullet casings at the four crime scenes, the newspaper reports.

Two of the shootings, one on Nolte Drive in February 2018 and one on Salerno Drive in April 2018 were in retaliation for a car accident involving Rubi’s girlfriend. Another, on Crepe Myrtle Drive in March 2018, targeted a woman who was in a fight with Rubi’s girlfriend. The motivation is unclear in the other shooting, on South Moore Street that March.

In the February shooting, a bullet struck the house and entered a room where a child was sleeping.

Rubi faces five years to life in prison at his December sentencing hearing. He has a previous felony conviction from 2014 for assault with a deadly weapon involving a handgun.